Self-isolation in forests led to fires – Rosleskhoz
The established warm weather contributes to the spread of forest fires in the Russian Federation.
The head of Rosleskhoz Sergei Anoprienko stated this in an interview with Izvestia, answering the question of how the self-isolation regime affects the fire situation.
"Very bad. If at the beginning of March our industry statistics recorded a fivefold decrease in the number of thermal points compared to 2019, then starting from the 20th of March there was a surge in fires throughout the country. This may be due to the fact that on days declared non-working (from March 28), people isolated themselves in nature and forgot about fire safety rules.
In some regions the temperature is now below 30 degrees, and you can’t keep people in their apartments. People have flocked to nature, and as a result we have a surge in thermal hotspots. After all, as before, the main cause of almost all forest fires is the human factor. Especially in the spring, when fire enters the forest from unauthorized agricultural burning and unextinguished fires along the banks of reservoirs,” said the head of the department.
According to him, the most difficult situation is now in the Trans-Baikal Territory and Buryatia.
“Despite all the regulatory bans, and agricultural burning tools have been banned since 2015, people burn dry grass. Today there are 75 forest fires, 73 of which are on forest lands. In total, as of April 28 of this year, 3339 outbreaks were recorded, last year - 1960. The area covered by fires since the beginning of the year is 477 thousand hectares. Last year by this day there were 382 thousand hectares.
But the average fire area has decreased: last year it was 195 hectares, and this year it is a little more than 140 hectares. This suggests that we began to detect the fire faster and do not allow it to flare up,” Anoprienko emphasized.
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